


A Dance with the Spirits of the City

by bobbiewickham



Category: Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-07
Updated: 2017-07-07
Packaged: 2018-11-28 19:05:33
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,382
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11424225
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bobbiewickham/pseuds/bobbiewickham
Summary: Jehan Prouvaire's late-night jaunt takes a dangerous turn.





	A Dance with the Spirits of the City

**Author's Note:**

  * For [PilferingApples](https://archiveofourown.org/users/PilferingApples/gifts).



The dingiest, grimiest street in Paris was still beautiful when softened by darkness and pearled over by moonlight. However choked with dust and filth and humanity the street might be in the ruthless daylight, the gentler touch of night transformed it as thoroughly as Cinderella's godmother ever could. It was less a masking than a revelation, a glimpse of the potential for beauty held in the city's bones.

Jehan Prouvaire had picked this street because it was small, quiet, and had a thick little wall with no buildings or trees too close. When the moon was full, the dun-colored wall glowed white and silver, and Jehan could see every word he scribbled down with perfect clarity.

It was early July. The sun had warmed the wall so that when Jehan climbed it to take up his usual perch, he felt as snug and toasty as if he were in his own bed. He pulled out his pen and stared at the page. It wasn't that the words wouldn't come. Jehan had had that problem before and there was nothing more frustrating. This time, though, he had at least three ideas for what to write, but none seemed brighter or darker than the others. He settled back to stare at the moon as he frowned and thought.

***

"I told you he'd be here," Lydia--Mamselle Miss to the associates of Patron-Minette and their hangers-on--murmured to Magnon. Magnon leaned over to peer through the leaves of the ragged shrub concealing them from the madman's view. He was black-skinned, as Lydia had said, and very thin. Even from a distance Magnon could see his trouser cuffs were tattered, but the light cloak draped over the wall had the telltale glimmer of high quality silk. The madman was rich. Lydia had surpassed herself in finding this one. 

Magnon felt herself begin to smile, which did not escape Lydia's notice. "Are you happy, then?" Lydia's face took on a stern look, but her voice was arch, and she leaned in to give Magnon a kiss.

"Very, my dear," Magnon said, pulling her closer. "The cloak alone should be worth something, on top of whatever's in his pockets."

By the time they broke apart the mists had gathered, veiling the madman so they could only see him when the fog shifted. "Let's do it now," said Lydia, looking radiant. "Even he won't stay here all night--and look, his eyes are closed." Magnon nodded, and fixed her hand on her knife-hilt, as they moved forward together.

***

The mists swirling round him and overhead turned the world into a sparkling sea. Jehan Prouvaire held each idea up in his mind's eye, studying it like a jeweler scrutinizing a gem of uncertain value and provenance. All around him was utterly peaceful, nothing but deep shadow and soft light and warmth and silence.

No--not perfect silence. Some distance away, a bush rustled, as bushes do not do if left alone on a windless night. Jehan Prouvaire, with a poet's attention to detail, heard the rustle as if it were a shout, and sat up straight.

No one was visible, but that meant nothing. Jehan scrambled to his feet. Standing on the wall gave him a better vantage point, allowing him to see two women's faces, illuminated by the moon. "Good evening," he called out, courteously.

The women exchanged glances. One of them ran forward, climbed up the wall with a dancer's grace, and stood before him, her knife-blade gleaming under the moon. "We are two, and you're here alone." Her voice was low-pitched, her tone even, though she could not prevent a touch of breathlessness. "Hand over your purse and cloak, and we'll leave you to bay at the moon in peace." Out of the corner of his eye, Jehan saw a movement below, and looked down. The other woman ran along the wall with a knife of her own. She didn't climb up, but waited below to block Jehan's escape. The other side of the wall was a thicket of brambles, with a rock-strewn lot behind it, and offered more chance of getting stuck than of getting away. 

This was an entirely different kind of excitement than Jehan had hoped for when he left his room earlier in the night.

Still, it had its own beauty. The women seemed gowned in shadows and crowned with silver and pearl. They had the grace and other-worldliness of wood-nymphs, only they seemed to belong wholly to the city, to its alleys and corners and vices. Had the Greeks ever thought of that? City-nymphs, goddesses of the streets and cafés and omnibuses? Well, obviously not omnibuses. But the Greeks had their great cities, after all. Perhaps they'd had city-nymphs of some kind, or perhaps it fell to the modern world to think of such things, if it would put aside its measuring-sticks and account books long enough to do so.

The city-goddess on the wall frowned. "Your purse," she repeated. "Don't you understand when I speak to you?"

"Oh," Jehan said. "Of course I don't have my purse with me." He wasn't such a fool as to carry money on him when he wandered the streets at night. His purse was safely tucked away in his apartment. Even if these women were capable of marching him there as their prisoner, someone in the building could easily be wakened, and then he would have an ally. 

"No purse!" The woman on the ground looked up, with obvious consternation. "You're lying." She had a slightly foreign accent, perhaps English.

I'm not," Jehan insisted. "I'd give you the money if I could." He meant it, too. There was something appealing about these lady-brigands. He turned out his trouser and waistcoat pockets. "See?"

"Oh, hell," said the woman on the wall. She looked at her companion. "At least we can take the cloak?"

"No!" Jehan cried out. He was fond of this cloak. It was midnight-black, and embroidered all over with crimson roses and golden flames. It had been the collaborative effort of a painter Jehan knew and his mistress, and when their love had died, the painter had sickened of the cloak. Jehan had gladly taken it off his hands. "Leave my cloak be!" But it was too late. The woman on the ground had snatched it. Jehan jumped off the wall, resolved to get it back. She ran, and he gave chase, street by street. Behind him he heard the footsteps of the other woman, and her voice, shouting. "Don't be a fool, just go home, it's only a cloak!"

"It--is--a--beautiful--cloak!" Jehan called out over his shoulder, not reducing his pace by a fraction. He rounded a corner, and there the miscreant was, bent over, wheezing, still clutching his cloak. He snatched it back from her in triumph, but the other woman caught up with him in that instant and snatched the other end of it, and began to tug.

Jehan held firm, at first, but then, to his horror, he heard a tearing sound.

The Infinite apparently had some of the spirit of King Solomon. "Fine," Jehan said, blinking hard, and releasing his grip. "Take the cloak, I'd rather that than destroy it."

The women looked at each other, bemused. Finally, the one with the accent said, "Well, good. My friend here will look better in it than you would, anyway." 

Jehan sighed. "Very possibly, mademoiselle." And with that, he went home.

But he did not sleep. His cloak was gone but his pen was his instrument again, and he wrote with frenzied haste the tale of a Parisian who met by moonlight two spirits of the city, and was drawn into their elven dance for a short spell.

***

The silk of the cloak felt like water on Magnon's bare skin, as she twirled and danced under Lydia's admiring eyes. Magnon had first thought to sell it, but no. This was for her. Moonlight turned to sunrise, and Magnon and Lydia danced away.

***

"What happened to that cloak of yours?" Courfeyrac asked, idly, over a game of dominoes nearly a week later. "You wore it almost every night for, what, a month? I thought it had grown to your skin."

"I traded it for a song," said Jehan Prouvaire.


End file.
